sonata
by luchino
Summary: maybe i didn't realize until later, but i think our love song had already ended by then. — silver, lyra, ethan. AU.


[**exposition**]

* * *

><p><em>(my childhood is a warm breeze and a grassy hill, a country house that's just a little too old and a pretty little girl with eyes like sunshine and bows in her hair.)<em>

—

The sound of wheels fills the air.

Silver looks up from tinkering with his watch, his eyes darting around as he assesses the situation; and Lyra, she laughs at his reaction, plucks a dandelion and sticks it in his bright red hair. His ears strain to listen for the type of car, the type of person who is passing through their town. A big truck, a moving truck, he decides, judging from the crunch of gravel underneath its wheels.

The white vehicle rolls to a stop in front of an empty, run-down sort of house that is typical of New Bark Town, and Silver squints to get a glimpse of their new neighbors.

"Who is it?" Lyra asks in this sort of sing-songy voice, falling back into the field of yellow petals. Silver looks over for a split second and can't help but think that Lyra, her sunshine is much brighter than the flowers around her—brighter than the sun, even. This is the girl he wants to love, the girl he wants to marry, one day when they're older and things make more sense.

But for now, maybe he can live with occasionally holding her hand and watching her pick flowers that are no match for her eyes.

—

_(it's the picture-perfect setting for one of those cheesy romantic comedies, where there's a boy and there's a girl and they fall in love—but then you get around forty-five minutes in and something just has to go wrong.)_

—

"Big moving truck, parked by that Elm guy's old house—hey, you listening?"

And then Lyra has his hand in hers and they're jetting down down down their hill; and then she's babbling on about a new neighbor, a new friend, and even when Silver tells her to _shut up, it's too early for this crap_ even though his heart is thumping from the close contact, she just laughs again _silver you don't mean that you never mean that._

The too-large watch, his father's watch, bounces up and down Silver's bony wrist as they spring, threatening to slip and break at any second.

—

_(or, maybe people like me just weren't meant to be happy.)_

—

A boy jumps out of the van then. He has dark hair hidden under a hat and bright eyes and a tentative smile.

"Hi, hello, I'm Lyra, and this is my friend, Silver!" She smiles and her cheeks are flushed and Silver's heart might have broken into a million little pieces. He mumbles something resembling a greeting and looks down at the ground, scuffing his boots on the dirt path.

"Nice to meet you; I'm Ethan."

And right then at 12:03, Silver's watch stops ticking.

—

_(when i was ten, i first started to wonder how it felt to fall in love.)_

—

They're older then, but only by one or two birthdays—and they still stay up late and watch the stars and catch fireflies in jars, and maybe Silver should have seen the warning signs. Maybe he should have paid more attention, when Lyra grabbed Ethan's hand while they were searching space for constellations, while she thought no one was watching, but Silver saw—because, in the end, his eyes always end up gravitating towards his sun. And Silver tells himself that he hates Ethan for stealing his sunshine away, but it's probably that he hates Lyra for abandoning him for a boy with a two-toned hat in the first place.

—

_(someone told me once, 'love is fleeting, but hate is forever.' all i know is, hate lasts a hell of a lot longer than love does.)_

—

"Hey, Silver—do you hate me?"

"No, I don't think so, maybe a little."

"Do you love me?"

"I think so, I know so."

"Do you hate Lyra?"

"No, I don't know, maybe."

"Do you love her?"

"I think so."

"Do you know so?"

"I think I know so."

"What would you do if I died?"

"What?"

"What would you do if I went away forever?"

—

_(i asked him once, have you ever wanted to kiss someone so badly that it hurt?)_

—

"You're my sunshine, you're my sunshine."

"Silver, are you in love with me?"

—

_(i asked him once, have you ever wanted to snap that same person's neck?)_

—

Silver asks Lyra if he can kiss her, once, but she laughs it off _no way silver we're friends friends don't do that_ and it hurts, maybe, a little. The pain has numbed over the birthdays that have passed, but he's still totally completely utterly in love with her—

At least, that's what he says to himself on those rainy Monday mornings when he's all alone on his bed looking out the window. When he loses his sunshine. When he falls back into the atmosphere, back into reality. When time seems to move forward, just a little bit.

Lyra asks Ethan if she can kiss him, once. That night Silver finds her standing on his doorstep, crying her pretty little eyes out—and even then, Silver thinks, her tears are just like sunbeams.

—

_(ethan told me, 'no, i don't think i have the capacity to love, i don't think i have the capacity to hate, i think maybe i'm just hollow on the inside like when God made me He forgot to give me a heart.')_

—

"I think I'm going to visit my grandparents sometime soon... What do you think, Silver?" Ethan asks inquisitively, turning his head slightly to face the redhead. Before he can even open his mouth to reply, Lyra interrupts—

"Gosh, Silver, you need to stop hogging Ethan!" And she smiles like it was a joke, and Silver wonders how her eyes can be so friendly yet so venomous at the same time.

"Oh, shut up," Silver replies stubbornly, glaring at Orion's belt high above their heads.

"You shouldn't say things like that, one day I'll get tired of it and I'll get up and leave, and Ethan will come with me—isn't that right, Ethan?"

—

_(i guess, in the end, i've always been watching her and she's always been watching him and he's always been watching the stars.)_

—

"I think I'm going to leave. Help my grandparents with their daycare center."

"What, did you finally decide that you're too good for us, city boy?"

"Please don't say that Silver, I love you."

"You don't, you just think so."

"You're my best friend."

Silver stays quiet.

"I'm a bad person, I think—I don't love her, Silver, I don't love her at all, and you're completely utterly in love with her and it's all my _fault—"_ Ethan breathes. In and out, in and out; and he looks up at Silver with pleading eyes, almost like he's begging for forgiveness. Silver can only commend his acting skills, and with a bitter heart and a cruel tongue, he replies:

"You stole my sunshine away."

—

_(maybe i didn't realize until later, but i think our love song had already ended by then.)_

—

"... a shooting in Goldenrod City, near the department store. Victim is a twelve-year-old boy ..."

—

_(sometimes i wonder could i have stopped you sometimes i wonder was it my fault.)_

—

Ethan disappears from their lives then—physically, at least, because Ethan's body is still in the hospital, oxidizing in a sea of white. Technically he's still alive, Lyra's mom says, he's just hooked up to a machine that's living for him. He's dead, Silver decides. He's as good as dead but his body keeps on living.

Silver and Lyra have a funeral anyways, complete with a small tombstone and a grassy hill and a rainy morning, but not a casket. It's a funeral, just barely—and even when they're all dressed up in black and even when they're standing in the mud, mourning a friend who only really existed for two years, Lyra doesn't cry. Her eyes narrow and her lips tremble once, twice—

but she doesn't shed a single tear.

—

_(sometimes i say to myself please i don't hate you. sometimes i say to myself please come back.)_

—

"Did you love him?" he asks.

"Yes. Yes, I think I did." Lyra's voice is soft and mechanical, as cold and unfeeling as the stone at their feet. 'Ethan', it reads, but when Silver leans down to run his fingers over the rough surface, it feels nothing like the soft skin of his dead friend. His dead best friend.

"Did he love you?"

Her eyes narrow even further and then the sunshine's dwindling. She walks forward and places a fist on his chest, right over his heart.

* * *

><p>[<strong>development<strong>]

* * *

><p><em>(and then we're older, and we've stopped counting time based on birthdays and holidays—or maybe it's just that we've stopped counting time altogether, maybe it's just that time has stopped for both of us. on the day ethan arrived, on the day ethan died.)<em>

—

Silver still has that watch kept in a nice little box in his room. And sometimes on those rainy Monday mornings when he's drifting along in negative space collecting dust, he can see Ethan sitting on the edge of his bed. And sometimes on those starless Tuesday nights, he can see Ethan hovering at the edge of his consciousness, just barely in his dreams.

He never sees the left side of Ethan's face—and maybe he doesn't want to because who knows what he'll find? A bullet hole, maybe, or a mangled smashed bloody cheek. Or maybe there would only be bolts and wires and a metal skeleton.

Silver decides that whatever is on the other side of that face, he doesn't want to know.

—

_(the sun never really shines anymore.)_

—

They're sitting on the hill together and when Silver looks around, he can't help but wonder if the dandelions are brighter. And when Silver looks down and sees Lyra's delicate hand, soft and pink and just a few inches away from his own, he wonders why his sunshine feels lightyears away. Lyra doesn't move and the black bows in her hair almost seem to droop.

"Ever wonder, what would've happened if Ethan stayed, didn't go to his grandparents'?" she asks, quietly, bitterly, conversationally. She doesn't mention white hospital beds or a hole in the earth without a body. "Ever wonder, what would've happened if you had asked him to stay? Ever wonder, what would you do if you went to go visit him? If you actually went to go visit him? Your best friend you fucking bastard?"

"He's dead, he's dead, he's dead dead _dead._"

"No," she says. "No," she screams.

—

_(it's hard to make-believe that it's not my fault when maybe maybe maybe i could've done something and maybe my last words wouldn't have been i hate you)_

—

"I couldn't do anything. I can't do anything."

"Useless useless useless you're _useless._ You should be in the hospital bed. You are suited for the hospital bed, you broken bastard, not even surgery could fix you why don't you just _die._" The words tumble out of Lyra's mouth at the speed of light, condensing around them in the chilly autumn air.

Silver can only wonder, _what happened to us?_ Lyra doesn't give him time to formulate a proper response, and continues:

"Why is it that you can keep on living when you've killed him?"

"I'm desperately in love with you." Pause. Raindrops fall from the sky, slow slow faster faster faster fast. "Maybe if I keep saying it, it'll stay true for ten twenty a hundred more years."

"Why is it that you can keep breathing when he's rusting in that prison?"

—

_(and then i fell into the sun, burning burning burning.)_

—

"Sometimes I wish I could rewind time," Silver murmurs to the wall.

"Time never waits, you know."

"Do you remember when we were smaller and no matter how far we reached, we could never touch the stars? Now you have, you've touched them and you've burned into space debris."

"I am nothing, you know. I don't remember anything, remember?"

"Sometimes I wish I could drift in space forever and then my only friends would be the stars and the planets and the comets."

"You'd have no oxygen, you'd die, you know."

"You're dead."

"Yeah," Ethan says. "You killed me, you know."

"You're dead."

Invisible arms wrap around Silver's lean frame, tightening around his chest and he can just barely feel the ghost of a sensation that was so familiar to him before. "Yeah," Ethan says. "I'm dead, I know."

—

_(or maybe a galaxy boy shot the sun, right in the heart, and it exploded. and maybe i was just caught in the crossfire.)_

—

Silver doesn't know why he chooses to move to Goldenrod, of all places. Maybe he wants to get closer to Ethan's presence, or maybe he wants to rid himself of that same presence. Maybe he can't stand his sunshine anymore, can't stand the way it sears his flesh and burns his bones and he just needs to

_"get out."_

His new apartment is somewhere discreet, sitting somewhere near the edge of the city. He looks out one window and sees the Radio Tower; he looks out another window and sees a green expanse of absolutely nothing.

—

_(when i was sixteen, i first started to wonder how it felt to fall out of love.)_

—

He never did tell Lyra that he was planning on moving. Maybe that's why he's surprised when he gets a call from her on a cloudy Sunday afternoon. His fingers, all bones and joints and white skin, tremble, and he hesitates before accepting the call.

"Hello? Silver?"

Silver breathes. "Yeah." There's a pause on the other line.

"Silver, hi! That wasn't very nice of you, leaving me all alone in New Bark Town while you got up and moved to Ethan's hometown—oh, gosh, what a _coincidence_, huh?"

The honey-colored bars of sunlight filtering through the window above his head slowly disappear, and Silver faintly registers the weather being broadcasted through the radio in the other room. "...heavy rain and a chance of thunderstorms later tonight..."

"Yeah. A coincidence." Breathe. "What the hell do you want, anyways?"

"Now, that's no way to talk to your best friend!"

"You said so yourself. My best friend is dead," he replies flatly, despite his thumping heart. "Now, if you didn't want anything, I'm just going to—"

"Wait." Lyra's tone changes sharply, and a chill seeps into Silver's bones. He remembers a shitty gravestone and a hole in the ground and mud sloshing underneath his boots.

He pushes his fear into a crevice in between his ribs and asks, "What?" Drip, drop, drip, drop—a torrent of fat rain droplets explode like kamikaze airplanes on his windowsill.

—

_(when i was sixteen, i started to wonder, was i even in love in the first place?)_

—

"You're so broken, Silver, so, so broken." He stays silent, for better or for worse. "If I wanted to, I could take you in my hands and fix you right up and tell you 'I love you', and then I could crush you into a billion little pieces, just with my index finger and my thumb. And then, you would fall into the sky and burn up and you would disappear forever, and maybe then I'll finally be happy."

Lyra pauses to breathe, and Silver's glad that he can't see her face right now—or maybe he just doesn't want to and that's why he's just looking away, out the window of reality at a boy with a two-toned hat.

"So, Silver, I've decided. I'm going to fix you."

—

_(ethan's eyes follow me, wherever i go, whatever i do.)_

—

Silver turns seventeen a few weeks later and he spends his birthday alone in his apartment, with the lights turned off and a little hallucination sitting by the windowsill. There's a box on his doorstep from his father, and when he opens it, he finds a gun. The cool metal in his palm feels more real than anything else, but when he looks down at his reflection he doesn't feel any older than he was five years ago.

He doesn't get any calls from Lyra, at least, or maybe he did and he just didn't bother checking.

His eyes flicker over to where his answering machine lies in pieces on the cold, wooden floor.

—

_(lyra's smile follows me, no matter how hard or fast i run.)_

—

"This is your fault, you know," Ethan says, swinging the leg closest to Silver. "Or, you know, maybe it's my fault."

"When will you let me see you?"

A smile plays at the younger's boyish lips. "Who knows?"

—

_(i don't know which one is worse.)_

—

They go on their first date in January, right after New Year's rolls along. Their hands are glued together and their fingers are intertwined but for some bizarre reason, Silver can't help but want to break free of the girl clinging to his cold fingers. The girl he's supposed to love, the girl he's supposed to have spent the last seventeen years of his life loving.

This is supposed to be all Silver ever wanted.

"I'm going to fix you, I love you," Lyra says, and her voice is all sunshine and rainbows but her smile is the kind of smile that doesn't reach the eyes.

"I loved you, too."

—

_(maybe this is what happens after the movie ends, where there's a boy and there's a girl and they're maybe in love, they're maybe on the brink of un-love but they don't know what to do with themselves and they keep on going, going, going with this fake sort of bullshit that every man and every woman secretly wants but can never have.)_

—

"You were the girl I always wanted to marry, you were the girl I always wanted to love. You were my sunshine."

"Wouldn't it be great if Ethan were still alive, so I wouldn't ever think about having to marry _you?"_

—

_(ever wonder if you were just living in a dream?)_

—

There are boxes filled with overalls and red ribbons throughout his apartment and it feels all wrong.

"I think I'm going to move again, maybe to Mahogany Town this time. Some of my father's—ah, _colleagues_, live there." Silver swallows, I'm all fixed I'm all fixed I'm all all all all all _fixed fixed fixed, I think we should break up, are we even dating no we're not this is all a lie isn't it_. "I think it'd be a good change of pace from city life."

"Oh, okay, when're we leaving?"

"I was under the impression that you would want to stay here—I know you love helping out at the daycare"—_Ethan's grandparents_, he silently corrects himself—"so much, so..."

Lyra doesn't look convinced but behind the doubt there is a strange sort of satisfaction. "Be sure to visit! You'd be a bad _boyfriend_ if you didn't."

"...Yeah."

"Hey, Silver, have I fixed you?"

Silver forces out a smile and hopes that Ethan is not watching. "Yeah."

He plants a kiss on her cheek and it feels all wrong.

—

_(ever wonder if you were just living in a nightmare?)_

—

Silver doesn't go to Mahogany Town.

* * *

><p>[<strong>recapitulation<strong>]

* * *

><p><em>(it's always sad when a flower starts to wilt.)<em>

—

Silver is nineteen now but he still feels twelve years old. It's funny how when he was young he wanted to grow up and get married, but now that he's old enough to do whatever he wants, he longs to go back to those summery days when the sun still shone.

He never finishes school and he can't help but wonder if his father is disappointed to him. If his father still remembers his son's face.

—

_(i don't know. i don't know i don't know i don't know anything, anymore.)_

—

He visits Lyra briefly on Christmas Eve and they kiss under the mistletoe and Silver wants to blow his brains out.

—

_(she asked me, have i broken you yet.)_

—

He spends all of New Year's Eve in Ethan's room, surrounded by white curtains white sheets white flowers and a constant beat of an android's heart.

"God did give you a heart. He gave you the biggest heart in the universe."

Silver doesn't look at the bed and instead focuses at the dusty, black-and-yellow baseball cap sitting on the desk nearby, right next to a thin vase of yellow daffodils.

"Sorry," Silver says and maybe he's crying or maybe he isn't. "Sorry. Sorry. I don't hate you I love you come back just please come _back._" He wipes his face with the back of his hand and seven years worth of pain comes rushing back into his bones.

—

_(i said, no, not yet, maybe you should try harder ethan would be disappointed you know?)_

—

"You didn't visit on New Year's."

"I know."

"Do you still love me?"

"I quit loving you the moment time stopped."

—

_(when i was nineteen i first started to wonder how it felt to fly.)_

—

When Silver goes back to his apartment there are no bows no dresses no overalls just him and his hallucination and his watch and his gun. And maybe it feels like home.

He lies on his bed and when his pillow smells like her perfume, he throws it in the garbage.

—

_(and now i can only sit in my rocket)_

—

Silver fumbles with the trigger of the gun and dials Lyra's number.

—

_(and wait for the takeoff.)_

_—_

While he's waiting, he takes a brush and starts to paint little black and yellow stars on his wall.

"I visited you," he says to the can of paint by his thigh.

"Yeah. You did, I know." Ethan smiles but Silver can't see, he's blinded blinded blinded and the stars feel like miniature black holes sucking away his sunshine. "I'm just an echo, you know? Wherever there's noise, I'll be there, you know? But your mind is dying, you know?"

"Maybe."

"Hey, Silver. You're my best friend, my best best friend and I'll love you to the end of time, you know?" Silver feels arms weaving their way around his torso and they're warm and heavy and alive. "It's not your fault. It never was."

And then the sensation fades, and when Silver turns he gets a brief glimpse of his friend's disappearing face. His friend's smiling face.

And then Silver smiles, and then Silver sobs.

* * *

><p>[<strong>coda<strong>]

* * *

><p>"I thought you should know, I'm broken. But you didn't break me."<p>

"What?"

"I broke myself." His fingers ghost over the surface of the gun. "I broke myself and now I'm going to land among the stars."


End file.
